2006-12-13

Pop for Parents

No, not the new Sufjan Stevens Christmas album (although that would make a lovely addition to my Jewish Girls' Guide to Rockin' Holiday Music collection) -- I'm talking about parenting pop culture. More specifically, I'm talking about pop culture for parents who want to go beyond Parenting magazine and Babies R Us -- pop culture with some hipster cred, in other words.

Brand spanking new to the scene is Babble, a site devoted to being "a revolution in parenting magazines: a publication that talks to parents not just as caregivers, but as fun, smart, intellectually curious people." Well, hallelujah, I say. On its first full day of publication, Babble looks like a wonderful electronic companion to the print-only wonders of Brain, Child magazine.

As this NY Times article points out, there's been an explosion of honest, irreverent parenting publishing going on, thanks to mommy & daddy blogs, Salon's Mothers Who Think (renamed Life), and momoirs. To this mother, stuff like this is both refreshing and soothing -- it's bracing to see parents admit their hatred of Maisy, and soothing to hear that other mothers have faced near-devastating nursing challenges (it's a bonus to me that the author of the breastfeeding article is Marjorie Ingall, The Forward's East Village Mamele, and long-ago contributor to my beloved Sassy magazine).

This is a major trend, and it's one worth keeping tabs on, both for your subject guides (who out there has a parenting subject guide? If you don't, you should!) and for collection development, generally. I could even see a monthly discussion group meeting based around readings from Babble -- instead of a book club, it'd be a Babble Club. Hmmm, programming idea, aisle one!

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